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Sampling errors and variability in video transects for assessment of reef fish assemblage structure and diversity

Video monitoring is a rapidly evolving tool in aquatic ecological research because of its non-destructive ability to assess fish assemblages. Nevertheless, methodological considerations of video monitoring techniques are often overlooked, especially in more complex sampling designs, causing ineffici...

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Autores principales: Bruneel, Stijn, Ho, Long, Van Echelpoel, Wout, Schoeters, Amber, Raat, Heleen, Moens, Tom, Bermudez, Rafael, Luca, Stijn, Goethals, Peter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9312474/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35877762
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271043
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author Bruneel, Stijn
Ho, Long
Van Echelpoel, Wout
Schoeters, Amber
Raat, Heleen
Moens, Tom
Bermudez, Rafael
Luca, Stijn
Goethals, Peter
author_facet Bruneel, Stijn
Ho, Long
Van Echelpoel, Wout
Schoeters, Amber
Raat, Heleen
Moens, Tom
Bermudez, Rafael
Luca, Stijn
Goethals, Peter
author_sort Bruneel, Stijn
collection PubMed
description Video monitoring is a rapidly evolving tool in aquatic ecological research because of its non-destructive ability to assess fish assemblages. Nevertheless, methodological considerations of video monitoring techniques are often overlooked, especially in more complex sampling designs, causing inefficient data collection, processing, and interpretation. In this study, we discuss how video transect sampling designs could be assessed and how the inter-observer variability, design errors and sampling variability should be quantified and accounted for. The study took place in the coastal areas of the Galapagos archipelago and consisted of a hierarchical repeated-observations sampling design with multiple observers. Although observer bias was negligible for the assessment of fish assemblage structure, diversity and counts of individual species, sampling variability caused by simple counting/detection errors, observer effects and instantaneous fish displacement was often important. Especially for the counts of individual species, sampling variability most often exceeded the variability of the transects and sites. An extensive part of the variability in the fish assemblage structure was explained by the different transects (13%), suggesting that a sufficiently high number of transects is required to account for the within-location variability. Longer transect lengths allowed a better representation of the fish assemblages as sampling variability decreased by 33% if transect length was increased from 10 to 50 meters. However, to increase precision, including more repeats was typically more efficient than using longer transect lengths. The results confirm the suitability of the technique to study reef fish assemblages, but also highlight the importance of a sound methodological assessment since different biological responses and sampling designs are associated with different levels of sampling variability, precision and ecological relevance. Therefore, besides the direct usefulness of the results, the procedures to establish them may be just as valuable for researchers aiming to optimize their own sampling technique and design.
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spelling pubmed-93124742022-07-26 Sampling errors and variability in video transects for assessment of reef fish assemblage structure and diversity Bruneel, Stijn Ho, Long Van Echelpoel, Wout Schoeters, Amber Raat, Heleen Moens, Tom Bermudez, Rafael Luca, Stijn Goethals, Peter PLoS One Research Article Video monitoring is a rapidly evolving tool in aquatic ecological research because of its non-destructive ability to assess fish assemblages. Nevertheless, methodological considerations of video monitoring techniques are often overlooked, especially in more complex sampling designs, causing inefficient data collection, processing, and interpretation. In this study, we discuss how video transect sampling designs could be assessed and how the inter-observer variability, design errors and sampling variability should be quantified and accounted for. The study took place in the coastal areas of the Galapagos archipelago and consisted of a hierarchical repeated-observations sampling design with multiple observers. Although observer bias was negligible for the assessment of fish assemblage structure, diversity and counts of individual species, sampling variability caused by simple counting/detection errors, observer effects and instantaneous fish displacement was often important. Especially for the counts of individual species, sampling variability most often exceeded the variability of the transects and sites. An extensive part of the variability in the fish assemblage structure was explained by the different transects (13%), suggesting that a sufficiently high number of transects is required to account for the within-location variability. Longer transect lengths allowed a better representation of the fish assemblages as sampling variability decreased by 33% if transect length was increased from 10 to 50 meters. However, to increase precision, including more repeats was typically more efficient than using longer transect lengths. The results confirm the suitability of the technique to study reef fish assemblages, but also highlight the importance of a sound methodological assessment since different biological responses and sampling designs are associated with different levels of sampling variability, precision and ecological relevance. Therefore, besides the direct usefulness of the results, the procedures to establish them may be just as valuable for researchers aiming to optimize their own sampling technique and design. Public Library of Science 2022-07-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9312474/ /pubmed/35877762 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271043 Text en © 2022 Bruneel et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bruneel, Stijn
Ho, Long
Van Echelpoel, Wout
Schoeters, Amber
Raat, Heleen
Moens, Tom
Bermudez, Rafael
Luca, Stijn
Goethals, Peter
Sampling errors and variability in video transects for assessment of reef fish assemblage structure and diversity
title Sampling errors and variability in video transects for assessment of reef fish assemblage structure and diversity
title_full Sampling errors and variability in video transects for assessment of reef fish assemblage structure and diversity
title_fullStr Sampling errors and variability in video transects for assessment of reef fish assemblage structure and diversity
title_full_unstemmed Sampling errors and variability in video transects for assessment of reef fish assemblage structure and diversity
title_short Sampling errors and variability in video transects for assessment of reef fish assemblage structure and diversity
title_sort sampling errors and variability in video transects for assessment of reef fish assemblage structure and diversity
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9312474/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35877762
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271043
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